What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

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roankun
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What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#1 Post by roankun »

The latest game I'm working is actually a bunch of stereotypes put together. The gentle childhood friend, the cool student council president, etc etc in your typical high school setting. And I was thinking that for my next game, I'd use some original characters in an original story (that is not just a bunch of stereotypes).

And well, I've hit wall. For the life of me, I can't seem to think of an idea (whether characters or story) that would not be considered cliched. Ideas, please?
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#2 Post by fleet »

Here are some ideas:
Do a ghost story from the ghost's point of view
Do a story about a couple breaking up while on a cruise ship.
Do a story about a father losing his job, and the impact it has on his family.
Do a story about a hard boiled female detective investigating a murder.
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#3 Post by papillon »

A lot of it is in how you handle it. Humanity has been around a long time - any idea you come up with will probably either be similar to something that's been done before, or will be utterly incomprehensible.

The more depth you give a character, the less they will seem like tired stereotypes even if they tick some of the boxes. There's a few threads in the Skill Development forum about character templates that will give you a huge long list of questions to answer about your character. A concept might start as simply "gentle childhood friend", but okay - where does she live, how stable is her parents marriage and jobs, how has that affected her, did she have pets, did they die, what about her other friends, does she do well in school, what are her hobbies, what is she afraid of, what's the worst thing she's ever done, etc?

By the time you've worked through all this, you'll know there's a lot more to her than just a gentle childhood friend, and that will help shape your story.

That said, if you're really stuck for ideas poke through the Ideas Dump thread and look for something that excites you. :)

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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#4 Post by Sapphi »

There is nothing new under the sun, as the writer of Ecclesiastes complained :P

Mostly, what Papillon said, although it might help you to take some inspiration from sources other than Japanese media. You'll still run into cliches and stereotypes, but they'll almost certainly feel fresher than the same tired Japanese high school routine.
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#5 Post by Pyonkotchi »

there's nothing new or original, but that doesn't mean you can give up
you could take a cliche and deconstruct it or invert it or subvert it. and make it interesting

instead of saving the world, destroy it
instead to trying to get the girl, try to get RID of her
a jock who deserves his popularity.
a bookworm who happens to be really loud and energetic.
a princess who actually performs royal duties
a dude in distress
a damsel who is just pretending to be in distress

try telling a story from a different point of view. a story where you play as the antagonist or the sidekick. or from the viewpoint of a non-human creature, such as a monster or a robot, or an animal. the murderer trying to prevent the detective from finding them out. the deity who chose the chosen one.
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#6 Post by Taleweaver »

Everything is clichéd. Consider http://www.tvtropes.org.

If you want a story that doesn't look stereotypical, try to use clichés that aren't used often. The aforementioned ghost story from the perspective of the ghost was something I did, for instance, as my first VN, Metropolitan Blues because I knew there weren't many stories, and I added a twist I had never seen before in that sort of story.

So if you combine two or more seldom-used clichés, the story will probably appear to be original and fresh. Add an uncommon setting and characters that rarely appear in popular culture and hardly anyone will accuse you of bein stereotypical.
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#7 Post by roankun »

Thanks for the replies. :)
papillon wrote:The more depth you give a character, the less they will seem like tired stereotypes even if they tick some of the boxes.
I still think of that as a stereotype (albeit a bunch of stereotypes all mixed into character), but I guess it would seem fresh from another perspective. :)
Taleweaver wrote:Consider http://www.tvtropes.org.
I'll admit. I'm almost always there on my free time. XD Though I guess this time, I'd be idea-hunting. :)
Pyonkotchi wrote:a dude in distress.
Alright, that made me laugh. XD
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#8 Post by lordcloudx »

I'm going to second Papillon's suggestion that it is in the way you handle it and add my own perspective on the same point.

I think the use of stereotypical characters is merely an apparent setback that can be easily remedied with good execution -- of course, this is easier said than done.

In my case, I find that it's quite useful to draw from your own experiences from how people that you know IRL behave and to imagine them in the roles of the character stereotypes or archetypes that you've chosen. Also, try to project what goes on inside their minds into your writing. This doesn't mean that you have to literally write from an omniscient perspective, but rather, that you shouldn't underestimate your own characters and try to see the unique persona behind the stereotype.
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#9 Post by Aoyama Ryuu »

Well, you see, stereotypes are difficult to avoid and, in truth, do you want to avoid them? You could make the story of a handicapped old man in his 80's that suffers from Alzheimer and is trying to save the world, but periodically forgets what he was doing. Still, do you want that?

You don't need to use stereotypes as they are, but you can start off Archetypes, which have been around for a long time.

http://www.svsoft.com/Archetypes,%20Myt ... acters.htm -- you can read on the typical archetypes here.

They need to be adapted, depending on your story, but usually if there is some sort of conflict (and there is, in normal cases), you can apply those archetypes. Now I don't mean to say you should use them as they are, but a combination of 2-3 archetypes for each character does yield originality. For example, the main character in the story I'm writing is a combination of the Hero and the Shapeshifter. The main antagonist is both a Shadow and a Mentor while the main character's best friend is both Trickster and Mentor.

These combinations might not be original by themselves, but the way they interact with each other, the way they act and react, is original.

Now, high school romance visual novels tend to dim these archetypes, but they're still there.
In Clannad, on Tomoyo's route, Tomoya breaks up with her so that she may follow her dreams unencumbered.
While Tomoya starts off as somewhat of a trickster and somewhat of an anti-hero, he eventually has a heroic impulse. I can't say of other routes, but generally if there's any form of conflict, there's something to be lost, the hero can manifest those certain traits. Shirou from F/SN makes self-sacrifice a way of life, but Kinoko Nasu does have a certain thing for making his main characters naive idealists.

Hope this helped. (Otherwise I lost lifetime :( )
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#10 Post by roankun »

lordcloudx wrote:I find that it's quite useful to draw from your own experiences from how people that you know IRL behave and to imagine them in the roles of the character stereotypes or archetypes that you've chosen.
I do admit that some of the scenes I have in my game are actually based on RL experiences. XD
Aoyama Ryuu wrote:You could make the story of a handicapped old man in his 80's that suffers from Alzheimer and is trying to save the world, but periodically forgets what he was doing. Still, do you want that?
Now that's something I haven't thought of. XD I'll consider that. LOL
Aoyama Ryuu wrote:http://www.svsoft.com/Archetypes,%20Myt ... acters.htm -- you can read on the typical archetypes here.
I've actually studied archetypes in school, but the way the teacher explained it, it made it seem like archetypes=stereotypes. I still think they're a bit similar, but I guess archetypes are more... condensed? I'm not too fond of the Hero type, so I'll guess I'll work something with Trickster and stuff. :)
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#11 Post by yummy »

In stories, stereotypes are made and used only for one reason: to create conflicts with a normal state.

So it's not really bad if you're using a stereotype. The problem would only be about using one that has been used too often.
One of the simplest way to create rounded characters that don't sound too monolithic would be to combine them with several notions and one purpose. This way, you'd get classic light novel characters, something between stereotypical ones and characters you'd only find in epic stories.

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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#12 Post by Camille »

Stereotypes exist in the first place because they're at least partially based in reality. So I think it's pretty much impossible to have a character that isn't cliche or stereotypical in one way or another. (I remember reading that the main character from Sandman scored a 70 on the Mary Sue litmus test, but they're definitely not a Sue!) What's important is making sure that your character surpasses the cliche and is relevant and realistic. I mean it's easy to say "well just deconstruct the cliche" or "make sure your character is DIFFERENT SOMEHOW" but what does that really mean? A checklist I go through:

- Could this character plausibly exist in real life, either in the present or in the time period they're from?
- Would I actually want to hang out with this character? (and if not, would someone else?)
- Does this character have balanced strengths and weaknesses? (if not, does this change during the course of the story?)
- What is this character motivated by? What is their goal?

Of course there's a lot of other things to consider, but that's generally a good starting point, I think. It's not so much the characters, anyway, as much as what you do with them.

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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#13 Post by curry nochi rice »

doing a war-VN from the commander's POV....
being the yandere herself....
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#14 Post by Glasskitten »

C. S. Lewis wrote:Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.
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Also:
Aoyama Ryuu wrote:You could make the story of a handicapped old man in his 80's that suffers from Alzheimer and is trying to save the world, but periodically forgets what he was doing. Still, do you want that?

Yes.
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Re: What would you consider as NOT cliche/stereotypical?

#15 Post by machinist »

Idk... maybe playing as a character overcoming depression?

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